Timeline of Latin American History since 1826

What Happened When?

Mexico Flag----------Cuba Flag----------Panama Flag  push pin Use this time line to help you locate events you read about. HI 216 runs in chronological fashion, so you can trace our progress with the time line. Use the Edit/Find in Page command of your browser to quickly locate people, places, and events. 
  • If you read about important events that should be added, please email the instructor. Gracias. 

    push pin 1800-1849 

  • See the Time Line for Colonial Latin America for earlier events 
  • 1804 * On January 1, Haiti, once the French colony of Saint-Domingue, becomes the first Latin American or Caribbean country to declare its independence
  • 1806 * British naval forces invade and briefly occupy Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 1807 * British forces invade and briefly occupy Montevideo, Uruguay; King John and his court flees to Brazil to escape Napoleon's invading armies in Portugal
  • 1808-33 * King Ferdinand VII rules Spain
  • 1808 * Portugal's royal family, headed by King John (Joao) flees Napoleon's invading armies and sails on British ships to Brazil
  • 1810 * Father Miguel Hidalgo issues his "Cry of Dolores" and begins Mexico's independence struggle 
  • 1811 * Venezuela and Paraguay declare independence; Hidalgo killed and replaced by Morelos in Mexico; José Gervasio Artigas leads battle for Uruguayan independence 
  • 1814-40 * Dr. Francia rules Paraguay
  • 1815 * Bolívar forced to retreat to the island of Jamaica 
  • 1816 * Argentina declares independence 
  • 1818 * Chile declares independence 
  • 1821 * Iturbide declares Mexico independent with his Plan of Iguala  Mexico, Central America and Peru declare independence 
  • 1822 * San Martín and Bolívar meet a Guayaquil, Ecuador; the former departs for France and self-imposed exile 
  • * US purchases Florida from Mexico
  • 1822-31 * Pedro I, son of Portuguese King John, declares Brazil independent and becomes the nation's emperor  slavery abolished in the Dominican Republic
  • 1823 * Monroe Doctrine warns against recolonization of newly independent Latin American republics; Chile abolishes slavery
  • 1824 * Last patriot victories against the Spaniards: Bolívar at Junín in August and Sucre at Ayacucho in December; Pedro writes a new Brazilian constitution 
  • 1825 * Bolivia declares independence 
  • 1825-28 * Argentina wins the battle with Brazil war over Uruguay (Banda Oriental). Following British pressure, Uruguay establishe as an independent nation in 1828
  • 1828-52 * Juan Manuel de Rosas dominates Buenos Aires and much of Argentina
  • 1829 * Venezuela leaves "Gran Colombia" 
  • 1830 * Ecuador leaves "Gran Colombia"; Simón Bolívar, the independence hero, dies preparing to go into exile 
  • 1829-52 * Dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas rules Argentina with an iron fist 
  • 1831-1844 * Pedro I forced to abdicate. Brazil ruled by committee--the Regency--a time of political fragmentation 
  • 1833 * Great Britian seizes the Malvinas (Falklands) Islands from Argentina
  • 1835-45 * Anglo-American settlers in Texas revolt against Mexico, establish an independent nation, and finally join the United States 
  • 1838 * Pastry War (Mexico vs France)
  • 1844-89 * King Pedro II rules Brazil 
  • 1838 * Latin America's first railroad is built in Cuba 
  • 1846-48 * US defeats Mexico and annexes the northern half of the country with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 

    • push pin 1850-99 

  • 1850 * Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in which Great Britain and the US agree to maintain as neutral any Central American canal 
  • 1850 * Great Britain forces Brazil to end the importation of African slaves
  • 1853 * With the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, US acquires route for a railroad through southern Arizona and New Mexico 
  • 1854 * Ostend Manifesto urges that the US acquire Cuba from Spain, by force in necessary 
  • 1855 * U.S. filibuster William Walker and his mercentaries invade and occupy Nicaragua. Walker declares himself president, rules for 2 years, and is finally shot by a Honduran firing squad on September 12, 1860 
  • 1857-60 * War of the Reform (conservatives vs liberals) in Mexico
  • 1861 * Argentina abolishes slavery
  • 1862-67 * French occupation of Mexico until Benito Juárez and his liberal forces defeat and then execute Archduke Maximillian 
  • 1865 * US mobilizes troops along the Mexican border as a threat to the French occupying army of Louis Napoleon, whose troops arrived there in 1862 
  • 1865-70 * War of the Triple Alliance (Paraguayan War) Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay defeat Paraguay 
  • 1867 * Jorge Isaacs (Colombia" published "María," a romantic novel
  • 1872, 1878 * José Hernandez (Argentina) publishes parts 1 and 2 of his epic poem, "Martín Fierro."
  • 1876 * First shipment of refrigerated beef from Buenos Aires to Europe Argentina's beef bonanza is underway. 
  • 1876-1911 * Dictator Porfirio Díaz rules Mexico (except 1880-84) 
  • 1878-83 * Argentina wages successful war against the Indians of the Pampas
  • 1879-84 * Chile defeats Peru and Bolivia in the War of the Pacific 
  • 1888 * Princess Isabel abolishes slavery in Brazil 
  • 1889 * Brazil's military overthrows King Pedro II and initiates republican government 
  • 1889-90 * First Inter-American Conference held in Washington, DC 
  • 1895 * US forces Great Britain into arbitration in its boundary dispute with Venezuela, asserting US dominance in the Western Hemisphere. 
  • 1898 * Spanish-American War / US intervention in Cuba US takes control of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Phillippines. 

    • push pin 1900-49 

  • 1901 * Hay Pauncefote Treaty in which Great Britain cedes canal-building in Central America to the US 
  • 1901-33* Platt Amendment to Cuba's new constitution gives the U.S. the unilateral right to intervene in the island's political affairs 
  • 1903 * Theodore Roosevelt intervenes to assist Panamanian independence from Colombia. Construction of the Panama Canal begins the following year and contiues for a decade
  • 1903-29 * Uruguay's middle class, led by José Batlle y Ordóñez 
  • 12/1904 * (Theodore) Roosevelt's Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine declares the U.S. to be the policeman of the Caribbean. US forces place the Dominican Republic under a customs receivership. 
  • 1909-12 * William Howard Taft promotes "Dollar Diplomacy," based on the erroneous belief that increased US investment will bring stability and economic prosperity to Latin America 
  • 1909-33 * US Marines intervene in Nicaragua 
  • 1910-20 * Bloody phase of the Mexican Revolution 
  • 1911-13 * Francisco Madero replace Porfirio Díaz as president of Mexico 
  • 1912 * Sáenz-Peña law expands male suffrage in Argentina
  • 1913-14 * Victoriano Huerta assassinates Madero and rules as dictator of Mexico, arousing opposition from the United States 
  • 1914 * Panama Canal opens 
  • 1914 * US forces shell and then occupy Vera Cruz, Mexico 
  • 1914-20 * Venustiano Carranaz serves as president of Mexico 
  • 1915-34 * US Marines invervene in and occupy Haiti 
  • 1916 * Mariano Azuela (Mexico) published "The Underdogs" (Los de abajo)
  • * Francisco "Pancho" Villa raids Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17 US citizens 
  • 1916-17 * US Expeditionary Force under Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing unsuccessfully pursues Pancho Villa in northern Mexico 
  • 1916-22 * Hipólito Yrigoyen and his middle-class party rule Argentina
  • 1917 * Zimmermann Telegram revealed in which Germany offers to help Mexico recover territory lost to the US in exchange for support in the First World War; Mexico's revolutionary leaders author a new constitution; US purchases the Virgins Islands from Denmark for $25 million to help defend the Panama Canal
  • 1919 * Uruguay promulgates a new constitution representing middle-class political values; "Semana Trágica (Tragic Week) of anti-labor and anti-foreign riots in Buenos Aires; Emiliano Zapata, Mexican revolutionary, assassinated on orders of Venustiano Carranza
  • 1920 * Venustiano Carranza assassinated in Mexico. Alvaro Obregón becomes president
  • 1923 * Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes renounces the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctine. US slowly begins moving away from interventionism. 
  • 1926 * Cristero rebellion in Mexico, conservative supporters of Roman Catholicism fighting against government reduction of Church power
  • * Ricardo Guiraldes (Argentina) publishes "Don Segundo Sombra," a novel about gauchos
  • 1927-33 * Augusto César Sandino and his guerrilla fighters successfully defy US Marine in Nicaragua 
  • 1929 * Ecuador becomes the first Latin American nation to grant women the right to vote 
  • * Rómulo Gallegos (Venezuela) published "Doñn Bárbara," a novel of the llanos
  • 1929 * The Great Depression brings economic disaster and radical political change to Latin America 
  • 1930 * Miguel Angel Asturias (Guatemala) publishes "Legends de Guatemala"
  • 1930-61 * Rafael Trujills rules the Dominican Republic as dictator until he is assassinated
  • 1931-44 * Jorge Ubico rules Guatemala as dictator until he is overthrown
  • 1932-35 * Paraguay defeats Bolivia in the Chaco War 
  • 1933 * FDR announces "Good Neighbor Policy" of non-intervention in Latin America  US offers to intervene in El Salvador to put down a peasant rebellion. The Salvadoran military dictator refuses, then murders thousands of peasants; "The Revolution of 1933" begins the political rise of Seargent and later General Anastasio Batista in Cuba
  • 1934 * US abrogates the Platt Amendment of 1901. 
  • 1934-40 * Lazaro Cardenas brings populist reform to Mexico and nationalizes the oil industry, including many US holdings, in 1938 
  • 1935 * The Somoza clan begins a family dictatorship of Nicaragua that lasts until 1979; Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina) publishes "Ficciones," short stories
  • 1937 * Getulio Vargas establishes the Estado Novo (new state dictatorship) in Brazil
  • 1938 * Lázaro Cárdenas expropriates foreign oil companies in Mexico
  • 1944-54 * The "Guatemalan Revolution" brings needed change under Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Arbenz 
  • 1945 * Garbriela Mistral, female poet from Chile, wins Latin America's first Nobel Prize for Literature 
  • 1945-89 * Cold War ideology drives US Latin American policy 
  • 1946 * Juan Perón elected populist president of Argentina
  • 1947 * Rio Pact signed, providing for mutual defense against Communism; Miguel Angel Asturias (Guatemala" publishes "Men of Maize"
  • 1948 * Organization of American States (OAS) formed; Rómulo Gallegos, author of the novel Doña Barbara, elected president of Venezuela
  • 1948-80 * Military dictatorship represses El Salvador

    • push pin 1950-- 

  • 1952 * Guatemala enacts a sweeping land reform law that takes land from the US-owned United Fruit Company (UFCO); Evita Perón dies
  • 1952-64 * The Bolivian Revolution brings land and labor reform but the efforts are thwarted by the military 
  • 1953 * Fidel Castro leds a failed attempt against dictator Fulgencio Batista at the Moncada military barracks in Cuba
  • 1954-89 * Alfredo Stroesser rules as dicatator of Paraguay
  • 1954 * CIA overthrows constitutional government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala 
  • 1954 * Brazil's president Getulio Vargas commits suicide
  • 1955 * Military in Argentina overthrows Juan Perón, initiating decades of military dictatorship
  • 1956 * US-supported dictator Anastasio Somoza assassinated in Nicaragua
  • 1957-86 * Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier rule Haiti as dictators, with US support
  • 11/1957 * US high school students in the Panama Canal Zone burn a Panamanian flag, sparking riots that kill and injure more than 100 people
  • 5/1958 * Vice President Richard Nixon meets strong anti-American sentiment on his "good will" tour of Latin America
  • 1/1959 * Dictator Fulgencio Bastista, supported by the US until 1958, flees Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba
  • 1960- * CIA plots to depose or assassinate Fidel Castro in what is eventually named "Operation Mongoose"
  • 1/1961 * Eisenhower administration breaks diplomatic relations with Castro in Cuba
  • 1961 * Brazil moves its capital inland from Rio de Janeiero to Brasilia
  • 4/1961 * US-sponsored invasion at Cuba's Bag of Pigs fails owing to terrible CIA planning
  • 1961 * US-supported dictator Rafael Trujillo assassinated in the Dominican Republic
  • 1961-69 *Kennedy's Alliance for Progress tries to bring reform and development to Latin America. At the same time, military dictatorships seize power throughout the region
  • 1962 * The bossa nova hit "Desafinado," by Brazilian composer Antono Carlos Jobim, becomes a world-wide hit, bringing Latin American music to larger audiences
  • 10/1962 * Missile Crisis with Cuba and USSR
  • 1964-81 * Brazilian President Joao Goulart overthrown by the military, with covert US support; military dictatorship
  • 1964 * Violent conflict between Panamanians and "Zonians" highlights need for a new Canal Zone treaty
  • 1965 * US forces, fearing a Communist takeover, occupy Dominican Republic
  • 1966 * Barbados gains indepedence from Great Britain
  • 1966-73, 76-83 * Military dictatorship in Argentina; "dirty war"
  • 1967 * Argentine-born revolutionary leader Che Guevara killed in Bolivia; Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias wins the Nobel Prize for Literature; Gabrield García Márquez (Colombia) publishes "One Hundred Years of Solitude;" Ernesto "Che" Guevara executed in Bolivia
  • 1968 * Populist military dictatorship in Peru, led by Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado
  • 1969 * "Soccer War" fought for 13 days between Honduras and El Salvador
  • 1969 * Rich Slatta makes his first trip to Latin America as a Peace Corps volunteer, training in Puerto Rico and serving in Panama City
  • 1970 * Socialist Salvador Allended elected president of Chile
  • 1970 * For the first time, Latin America's population is as urban as it is rural. The US reached this point in 1920
  • 1971 * "Papa Doc" Duvalier, long-time dictator of Haiti, dies
  • 1970-73 * US and multinational corporations work covertly to overthrew socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile.
  • 9/1973 * Chilean military, led by Augusto Pinochet, overthrews president Salvador Allende (who was executed or committed suicide) and institutes repressive dictatorship until 1990
  • 1973-84 * Military dictatorship in Uruguay
  • 1974 * Grenada gains independence from Great Britain
  • 1974-76 * Juan Perón dies, leaving his wife, Isabel Perón, who serves as Argentina's and Latin America's first female president
  • 1977 * US and Panama sign a new treaty providing for Panamanian control of the canal in 1999
  • 1978 * Dominica gains independence from Great Britain
  • 1979 * Sandinista (FSLN) Revolution ousts dictator Anastosio Somoza and takes power in Nicaragua
  • 1977-80 * President Jimmy Carter makes human rights a major goal in his Latin American policy
  • 1979-81 * Several Caribbean islands gain independence
  • 1980 * Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) revolutionaries begin attacks in Peru
  • 1981-86 * Reagan administration officials secretly direct counter-revolutionary (contra) forces against the Nicaraguan Sandinista government 
  • 1981-88 * Reagan administration strongly supports the Salvadoran military, despite rampant human rights abuses, in their fight against FMLN guerrillas
  • 1982 * Gabriel García Marquez, Colombian writer, wins Nobel Prize for Literature; Isabel Allend (Chile) publishes "The House of the Spirits;"
  • 4/1982 * Argentina invades the Falklands/Malvinas Islands, held since 1833 by Great Britain. Reagan administration officials debate for two weeks before siding with Great Britain
  • 1983 * Richard W. Slatta published his first book, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier
  • 1983 * Disgraced by defeat in the Falklands/Malvinas, Argentina's military officers turn over power. Raul Alfonsin elected president.
  • 1983 * Reagan orders US forces to invade Grenada to halt Cuban work on an airstrip and end Cuban influence on the island
  • * Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Guatemala) publishes "I, Rigoberta Menchú"
  • 1985 * Earthquake strikes Mexico City
  • 1985 * Civilian rule returns to Brazil for the first time since 1964
  • 1986 * Jorge Luis Borges, famed Argentine writer, dies
  • 12/1986 * Congress begins investigations of the Iran-Contra scandal
  • 1986 * Coup ousts dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier in Haiti
  • 1987 * President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica wins the Nobel Peace Prize
  • 1989- * End of the Cold War diminishes Latin America's significance in US foreign policy
  • * Patricio Aylwin elected president of Chile, replacing dicatator Augusto Pinochet
  • * Alberto Stroessner, long-time dictator of Paraguay, ousted
  • 12/1989 * George H. W. Bush orders invasion of Panama to capture one-time dictator Manuel Noriega
  • 1990 * Octavio Paz, Mexican writer, wins Nobel Prize for Literature; Alberto Fujimori elected president of Peru; later makes himself dictator, with massive human rights abuses
  • 1990 * Violeta Barrios de Chamorro elected as Nicaragua's first female president
  • 1991 *Soviet Union aid to Cuba ends
  • 1991 * UN-sponsored peace ends civil war in El Salvador
  • 1992 * NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
  • 1992 * Earth Summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro. Bush administration sabotages most of the environmental proposals
  • 1992 * Guatemala's Rigoberta Menchú, a Quiche Mayan woman, wins the Nobel Peace Prize
  • 1993 * US, Mexico, and Canada form NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement
  • 1993 * Pablo Escobar, drug king of Medellin, Colombia, shot and killed by police
  • 1/1994 * NAFTA takes effect. EZLN (Zapatista) revolutionaries, led by Subcomandante Marcos, launch attacks in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas
  • 1994 * Threatened invasion of Haiti by US troops
  • 12/1994 * Summit of the Americas meeting in Miami
  • 1996 * Helms-Burton Law increases economic boycott of Castro's Cuba
  • 10/1997 * Bill Clinton visits several South American countries and speaks of extending free trade to more of the region
  • 11/1997 * Clinton seeks "fast track" authority in negotiating foreign trade. Congressional Democrats resist; Repubicans generally support
  • 1990s * High levels of drug trafficking, massive foreign debt, economic dependency, rain forest and coral reef destruction, illegal immigration to the US, and other problems continue to face the US and Latin America
  • 1998 * Leftist Hugo Chávez elected president of Venezuela
  • 1999 * Mireya Moscoso elected as Panama's first female president
  • 12/1999 * Panama begins sole operation of the Panama Canal
  • 2000 * First non-PRI candidate elected as president of Mexico, Vicente Fox
  • 2001 * the New Millennium * World problems elsewhere distract the US from Latin American problems. Troubles smoulder. Argentina's economy melts down and begins a painful recovery. Populist/leftist presidents elected in several countries, in protest to free trade and declining quality of life. Colombia's drug war continues. Latin America becomes the major supplies of heroine in addition to cocaine.
  • 2002 * 44 percent of Latin America's people-221 million---were living in poverty. The poverty level is $2 PER DAY! Unemployment jumped 10 percent during the 1990s. Millions of children work illegally. Privatization of government entities and services (like water) has sharply increased costs. Except for occasional platitude and the immigration issue, George W. Bush largely ignores Latin America. Leftist, anti-US politicians are elected president in many countries. Sandinista politician Daniel Ortega runs for the presidency in Nicaragua.
  • 2003 * Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva, labor leader, is elected President of Brazil
  • 2005 * Evo Morales elected as Bolivia's first indigenous president
  • 2006 * Michelle Bachelet, a socialist in Chile, becomes the first elected femlae president in South America
  • 2007 * Christina Fernandez de Kirchener, wife of an ex-president, elected as Argentina's president
  • 2008 * Fidel Castro resigns as President of Cuba after 49 years
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